Myanmar military in PR battle

State media is broadcasting pictures of massive pro-government rallies

Myanmar's information ministry has attempted to seize back the public-relations initiative, denouncing independent media and saying that in raids on certain monestries, the authorities uncovered pornographic material.

TheNew Light of Myanmar, the state newspaper, carried reports that, in some of the targeted monasteries, security forces uncovered "uncensored pornographic VCDs" as well as pornographic books and photos, bottles of alcohol, playing cards and "one Nazi headband".

"It is regrettable that the operation revealed that in some monasteries, women sleep in the buildings where monks reside," the paper reported.

The paper, which has carried denunciations of some of the foreign broadcasters who reported on the protests, also repeated government claims that the monks who led last month's demonstrations were not genuine monks.

Explaining the large number of arrests, the paper said soldiers "could not differentiate between monks and novices and bogus ones, so they took 513 monks, one novice, 167 men and 30 women for questioning".

The information ministry is broadcasting pictures on state television showing massive pro-government demonstrations, reporting massive daily rallies that look as if they are carefully choreographed by civilian arms of the government.

The images present an alternative narrative to the independently filmed pictures of tens of thousands of unarmed demonstrators, furious with the government, being beaten by soldiers during protests earlier this month.